Chapter 14
Aguard appeared at our door not five minutes after the general stormed out. Gage never returned, but maybe that’s for the best. Anyone who refers to me as “Valen’s human whore” isn’t particularly welcome in our lab.
“We got your blood worked up, looking good. White blood cells are in that bizarro symbiotic relationship with the vampire cells. Supercharged with fibrin. Ready to rock.” Wyatt stares at the computer next to the HCL. “We’ll start trialing it.”
“What do we have on the menu?” I’m thumbing through a catalog of everything stored in the deep freeze and refrigeration units on the lower levels.
“Not much, to be honest.” He hunts and pecks on the keyboard with one hand. “Mostly virus stock.”
Watching him, it really hits me how much he’s lost. “You haven’t complained once.” I think it out loud.
“What?” he asks.
“Sorry. I was just saying you’re pretty damn tough.” I shrug. “That’s all.”
He waggles his severed forearm. “Oh, I belly-ached plenty the first few days after.” He stares at the wrapped end.
“Especially when they stopped giving me the good meds. Bummer. The weirdest thing is the phantom of it. Still feel it there even though it’s gone.
It even itches, like a very specific spot on the back of my wrist driving me crazy with an itch, but there’s nothing there to scratch. ”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. It is what it is. I can still spin a record. They salvaged a few from the wreckage, if you can believe it. Most of them are history, but I still have some tunes. And there’s still a world out there.
It’ll still be there when this war is over, when the plague is history, and I’ll be stockpiling fresh beats all over again. Gotta keep moving, you know?”
“I do.” I nod and go back to my catalog. “I think we all do.”
“Check it. Here it is.” He leans forward and taps on his screen.
“Partial manifest of what they salvaged from the CDC before it got rocked. We got SierraVirus aplenty, common cold strains, flu strains for what looks like the past decade, and a smattering of about a hundred or so other things. All of it in the cold storage a few levels down. Not much in the way of fungus or bacteria.”
“Tougher to keep stable,” Evie murmurs from her desk.
“Yeah. So let’s start small. Safer that way.
Something that’s not airborne.” I think through the options.
“Keep it small but blunt. Only a few samples at a time, and introduce the virus directly into the blood and see what happens. The less fancy it is, the better off we’ll be during this trial phase. We’ll finetune it as we go.”
“Roger that.” He salutes. “I’ll head down and get what we need. Evie, need anything?”
She twirls on her stool. “No, I’m good for now.”
The door opens, a woman walking in, then pausing as she looks around at the three of us. “I should’ve knocked, I guess? Sorry about that.”
“Hey.” Evie looks up. “Astrid.”
“Hi.” She smiles, her dark eyes sparkling a little behind her wire-rimmed glasses.
Dressed in casual but stylish civilian clothes, she pulls up a stool close to Evie and plops a large notebook on the desk.
“Just figured I’d come check in since you have your new addition to the team. Brought some notes.”
I glance between them, then at Wyatt. He waggles his eyebrows and shoots the two of them a look. I snort a laugh.
“Oh, sorry.” Evie stands quickly. “This is Georgia. Georgia, meet Astrid. She heads the crew that’s been researching the vampires.”
“Heading downtown.” Wyatt opens the door, the guard outside giving him a sour look. “Evie’s good. You need anything, Georgia?”
“Yeah, some signalosomes, but I’m still looking for the right ones.
This catalog system is prehistoric.” I flip another page.
“Someone without any sort of basis in science must’ve compiled it.
Makes no sense. A toddler could’ve done it better.
” I glare at the notations written in neat block print at the bottom of the page.
“At least they had nice handwriting, I guess.”
Evie clears her throat.
I look up. “What?”
She bobs her head toward Astrid in a comically obvious gesture.
“Okay then, I’m out.” Wyatt lets the door close, and he chuckles in the hallway.
“Sorry about that.” Astrid looks stricken.
Shit. “Oh, you—”
“I did the best I could. The way those were categorized didn’t make sense to me, and I just did what I thought was best. The troops arrived with a mountain of things from the CDC and told me to make sense of them and to do it on paper because there was no guarantee our systems would keep working, and that was before I’d even met Evie, so I organized sort of according to the numbers that were at the end of each sort of batch of vials or by the case.
” She’s talking so fast her words start to blur. “I—”
“I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” My cheeks heat. “It’s all right.”
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t do it right.”
“You did fine.” I close the catalog and tap the cover. “It’s fine. Really.”
Evie gives me a death glare.
The room goes silent as I wonder if I should speak or just hide under the table. Somehow, this makes me more uncomfortable than when General Lopez was threatening me with execution.
“Astrid has a background in languages and curation,” Evie says, her tone one degree above frostbite.
“She was working at the Smithsonian when her Army major father evacuated her here. She’s been working for the cause ever since, first cataloging the incoming materials and then moving to studying the vampires. ”
“What can you tell me about them?” I try to hurry past the awkwardness.
Astrid’s face loses some of its dourness, though her light brown skin is still tinged with red. “I’ve learned a lot. I mean, what do you want to know?”
“How many bloodlines?”
“Three.” She perks up.
“Name them.”
“Dragonis, Corvidion, and Tantun.”
“Abilities?”
“Dragonis can control humans and each other through their blood. Corvidion are the winged ones. Tantuns are venomous in their bites, their scratches, and their blood.”
“Who rules them?”
“Gregor, though some of our sources indicate the other two houses, and those within House Dragonis, are after his position somewhat perpetually. It’s like an age-old game of king of the hill.
Anyway, he maintains control through his blood bonds and his progeny.
Theo, whose death weakened Gregor’s position substantially, and Valen, who serves as his top general, the Specter.
Not much is known about any of them, but Theo was at the White House throughout the tenure of President Clark.
” She looks away. “After his death, Valen became more of a central figure, leading the charge against us. We don’t know why they attacked or what their end goal is.
The blood camps are gone, so they aren’t after a food source.
Their hold on the government disintegrated when they destroyed DC, and their ability to appeal to the rest of the world died when they executed missile strikes on major population centers.
They’ve made no demands. There doesn’t seem to be any unified goal other than killing us. ”
There’s nothing to argue with. “Fair assessment.”
“You’ve been with them though, this whole time, right?” Her face brightens. “You must know so much more. I would love to sit down with you and record your—”
“I don’t think she’s ready for that yet, Astrid,” Evie says.
“Oh.” She laughs nervously. “Of course. Sorry. I just get a little carried away when it comes to knowing about them. I’ve done all the research I can, really.
I interview soldiers and civilians remotely when they’re waiting in the virus quarantine areas.
I’ve compiled a lot of data that way. I’ve also gotten a few reports from some of the military doctors who’ve studied materials from the skirmishes. ”
“Materials?” I raise a brow.
“Body parts. Vampire body parts,” she amends.
“They’ve examined them, though apparently they degrade quickly, and if they’re exposed to sunlight—well, you know what happens.
” She lowers her voice. “I’ve heard we have prisoners.
Vampires. Live ones. If I could just talk to one of them, I feel like I’d be able to get a better handle on their motivations, on a lot of things, really.
The soldiers deny that they have prisoners at all, but there are rumors that they’re doing experiments. ”
I give Evie a questioning look. “They’re experimenting on vampires?” I don’t like the sound of that. Not one bit.
She frowns. “I honestly don’t know. I’ve heard the rumors, too, but none of that data or any evidence has ever made it here.
Not even the samples they’ve taken from the body parts.
I guess they don’t clue us in since we’re only here to work on a vaccine.
I know for sure there are other labs deeper in the base, other scientists—mostly military—but we don’t cross paths with them, and they certainly don’t share information. ”
Eradicating the vampires, experimenting on them—what are we becoming? Or is this what we always were?
“Sorry.” Another nervous laugh from Astrid. “Like I said, I get carried away when I’m discussing them, and I’d really love to hear about your experiences.”
“It’s all right.” I give her what I hope is an encouraging smile despite the misgivings her information has cemented in my mind. “I’m kind of on a tight deadline right now, but once I’m past that, I know just the place for you.”
“A place?” She pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose.
“Yep. A library filled to the rafters with books, plenty of them about vampires. You could research there for the rest of your life and never get to the end.”
Her eyes grow huge behind her glasses. “Are you serious?”
“She is,” Evie says.
“How do we get there?”
“We don’t. Not until this war is over. But if it ends, and we win, I’ll take you there.”